1. Field
The following description relates generally to wireless communications, and more particularly to routing packets among multiple access points.
2. Background
Wireless communication systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication content such as, for example, voice, data, and so on. Typical wireless communication systems may be multiple-access systems capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing available system resources (e.g., bandwidth, transmit power, . . . ). Examples of such multiple-access systems may include code division multiple access (CDMA) systems, time division multiple access (TDMA) systems, frequency division multiple access (FDMA) systems, orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) systems, and the like. Additionally, the systems can conform to specifications such as third generation partnership project (3GPP), 3GPP long term evolution (LTE), ultra mobile broadband (UMB), evolution data optimized (EV-DO), etc.
Generally, wireless multiple-access communication systems may simultaneously support communication for multiple mobile devices. Each mobile device may communicate with one or more base stations via transmissions on forward and reverse links. The forward link (or downlink) refers to the communication link from base stations to mobile devices, and the reverse link (or uplink) refers to the communication link from mobile devices to base stations. Further, communications between mobile devices and base stations may be established via single-input single-output (SISO) systems, multiple-input single-output (MISO) systems, multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems, and so forth. Access points, however, can be limited in geographic coverage area as well as resources such that mobile devices near edges of coverage and/or devices in areas of high traffic can experience degraded quality of communications from an access point.
Relay nodes can be provided to expand network capacity and/or coverage area by facilitating communication between mobile devices and access points. For example, a relay node can establish a backhaul link with a donor access point, which can provide access to a number of other relay nodes, and the relay node can establish an access link with one or more mobile devices or additional relay nodes to facilitate communicating with the donor access point. A donor access point can communicate directly with a core network, for example, over a backhaul link and the relay nodes can thus provide various downstream devices and/or other relay nodes with access to the donor access point (e.g., to communicate with the core network). Thus, there can be multiple relay nodes in a communications path between a mobile device and access point. In certain relay node configurations (e.g., for internet protocol (IP) relay nodes), each relay node can add a header to a received packet to facilitate routing the received packet among the various relay nodes and/or among core network components. Similarly, a given responding packet can include various headers to be processed at each relay node to route the packet to a device related to the received packet. The various headers result in additional data transmitted between each node in a communications path, which can impact data throughput in the wireless network.